There are few who doubt that, after finishing up his sixth season in Major League Baseball, Jason Heyward is a good player. Up for debate is precisely how good Jason Heyward has been during his career, and more importantly for whichever teams signs him this winter, how good Heyward will be moving forward. Attempting to measure defense with advanced statistics like UZR and DRS has its critics, and attempting to place a value on it can be difficult. Heyward has been an above average offensive player, incredible on defense, and heading into free agency a few months after turning 26 years old, provides few realistic players for comparison. Heyward will get paid. How much will he be worth?

Heyward’s main drawback, perhaps only drawback, as a player seeking more than $100 million is his lack of power. He hit 27 home runs in 2012, but recorded just 13 of them this year along with an isolated slugging percentage of .146, essentially league average. Combining average power with a low strikeout rate (14.8% in 2015) and a solid walk rate (9.2%), Heyward’s wRC+ of 121 puts him in the upper third in terms of the league’s hitters. Adding in 23 steals on 26 attempts and the rest of his baserunning, Heyward’s 22 runs above average on offense placed him within the top quarter of qualified hitters. Lacking in top shelf power, Heyward still provided solid numbers on offense, and after a disappointing start with he Cardinals, he hit .306/.375/.455 with a wRC+ of 130 from the beginning of May to the end of the season.

The lack of power does prevent easy comparison to most free agent mega-deals. The names brought up most recently with regard to Heyward are Jacoby Ellsbury, who got seven years and $153 million from the New York Yankees two years ago, and Carl Crawford, who received seven years and $142 million from the Boston Red Sox five years ago. While those deals might no look great now, age is a major factor. When Ellsbury was Heyward’s age, he had just completed his second full season. Crawford debuted young, but due to a team-friendly contract, he did not become a free agent until after his age-28 season, three years older than Heyward. Ellsbury, now 32, has been worth 21 wins since turning 26 while Crawford, 34, has been worth 22 wins over the last eight seasons. Solid production, that, despite some disappointing seasons mixed in.

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Unless you’re Cardinals fan, or you happened to watch a lot of Cardinals games this year, you’ve probably given very little thought to Tommy Pham. It’s very possible that you’d never even heard of him before this year’s playoffs. Heck, it’s even possible you’re still not even sure who he is or where he came from. But the 27-year-old rookie played a big role in Friday night’s game, when he blasted a pinch-hit homer off of Jon Lester in the 8th inning. His homer added an important insurance run for the Cards, extending their lead from one run to two. Check it out.

Hitting a homer isn’t a particularly rare occurrence for Pham, at least not lately. He hit five of them in his 173 big league trips to the plate this year, which helped propel him to a .268/.347/.477 batting line. His home-run total placed him third among Cardinals rookies, trailing only Randal Grichuk and Stephen Piscotty. But unlike his rookie teammates, Pham missed the cut for just about every organizational prospect list — both this season and in every prior season.

His absence from these lists had almost everything to do with his age. Pham turned 27 back in March, making him significantly older than your average rookie. But while 27-year-old impact rookies are few and far between, Pham’s success hasn’t exactly come out of the woodwork. He hit .320/.391/.487 in 603 Triple-A plate appearances between this year and last, which was good for a 132 wRC+. To put that in context, Pham was essentially the Lucas Duda of Triple-A before the Cardinals gave him a call.

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Ahead of the Wild Card Game between the Chicago Cubs and the Pittsburgh Pirates, much of analysis in between the announcement of the starting lineups was focused on the potential trade-off of offense for defense by the Pirates and vice versa for the Cubs. Clint Hurdle chose to start Sean Rodriguez instead of defensive liability Pedro Alvarez at first base. Joe Maddon chose to put Kyle Schwarber in right field and Kris Bryant in left field. Although the Cubs got the win, both moves were reasonable. In hindsight, the move by Maddon was not a big departure from normality, but whether the same justifications exist in the upcoming series against the Cardinals is debatable.

Putting third baseman Kris Bryant out in left field and inserting Tommy La Stella at third base was the biggest surprise about the Cubs lineup against the Pirates, but that position shift as well as others made a bit earlier in the year, put the Cubs defense out of position on almost every position in the field. Catcher Miguel Montero, first baseman Anthony Rizzo, and center fielder Dexter Fowler were in their typical everyday positions, but the other five players were playing at positions other than their typical 2015 setup. The chart below shows the percentage of innings each player played at the position where they started in the Wild Card game.

Percentage of Innings at Wild Card Position in 2015

	WC Position	Defensive Innings at WC Position	Total Defensive Innings	% of Innings at WC Position
Kris Bryant	LF	39	1313.1	3.0%
Kyle Schwarber	RF	14	445.2	3.1%
Starlin Castro	2B	258	1201	21.5%
Tommy La Stella	3B	52	140	37.1%
Addison Russell	SS	471.1	1217.1	38.7%

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The St. Louis Cardinals won 100 regular season games this year and there’s no way to keep that from sounding impressive. They had a fantastic season. No matter how much their record benefited from good timing, the underlying performance was still great. Looking at their runs scored and allowed, they played like a team that would typically win 96 games. Looking at their expected runs scored and allowed, they played like an 89-win team. Depending on your preferred method for evaluating baseball teams, they were somewhere between very good and incredible.

It’s worth remembering that their best starting pitcher, and one of their best two or three players, didn’t making a single start for them after April 25. Adam Wainwright tore his Achilles and missed virtually the entire regular season and the team still won 100 games.

The Cardinals have depth, it’s one of their strengths. Wainwright went down and they were able to rely on Carlos Martinez, John Lackey, Michael Wacha, Lance Lynn, and Jaime Garcia for most of the 158 starts Wainwright was unable to provide. Those are interesting names. Martinez and Wacha were good prospects with high ceilings and Lynn has slowly caught on as an under-the-radar workhorse. The oft-injured Garcia has always been a quality arm during stretches in which he was able to use it. And of course, Lackey was the stalwart who’s been reliable since recovering from Tommy John three years ago.

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Around the beginning of the year, the Cardinals lost Adam Wainwright, and though they just welcomed him back to the active roster, there’s no time to build him up as a starter. Around the end of the year, the Cardinals lost Carlos Martinez, and while the hope is that there’s nothing seriously wrong with his shoulder, he won’t pitch again for a while. It speaks to the Cardinals’ organizational talents that Martinez developed into a quality option, and it speaks to their depth that his absence can be survived, but it puts a little more pressure on everyone else. Everyone includes Michael Wacha, but Wacha had himself a miserable September.

It was capped off Wednesday with a four-inning, six-run outing. Everyone’s allowed the occasional clunker, but it gets worrisome when a pattern develops, and in Wacha’s five September starts, he gave up 21 runs in 24 frames, with about as many walks as strikeouts. The obvious initial guess is fatigue. Wacha had a start skipped at the beginning of the month with his innings total in mind, and he’s cleared last year’s pitch count by about 1,200. And, absolutely, he might just be tired. Or it could be something else. There’s no reason to go with the initial guess and just stop there, when some research can be done.

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The crux of my duties here at FanGraphs is to project prospects who happen to be in the news. In most cases, this involves writing about highly touted minor league players as they’re called up to the big leagues for the first time. There’s certainly been no shortage of players from that phylum in 2015. This year has often been labeled the “The Year of the Prospect,” and rightly so. From Kris Bryant to Carlos Correa to Noah Syndergaard to Lance McCullers, we’ve experienced a historic wave of young talent matriculating to the big leagues. Top prospects often turn into productive big leaguers, so nobody would be surprised if several of this year’s crop of rookies went on to be perennial All-Stars.

But not all impact major leaguers come out of this mold. As Jeff Sullivan uncovered this past February, about one-third of the players who produce three wins in any given season never even cracked a Baseball America’s Top 100 list. The purpose of this post is to analyze, or at least call attention to, a few rookie hitters on contending teams who weren’t ballyhooed as prospects, but have still acquitted themselves well in the big leagues. The four hitters below came to the big leagues with little fanfare, but have already made an impact on the division races this year, and more importantly, stand a good chance of remaining productive.

*****
Randal Grichuk, OF, St. Louis

Although he was a first round pick, Randal Grichuk underwhelmed throughout his minor league career. His 113 wRC+ as a minor leaguer was more good than great, especially for a future corner outfielder. And up until this season, he was best known as the guy the Angels selected before Mike Trout. Grichuk’s put together an excellent performance for the Cardinals this year, however, belting 16 home runs in 92 games on his way to a 142 wRC+. Grichuk’s had some trouble making contact, but has made up for it by being extremely productive in those plate appearances that haven’t resulted in a strikeout.

Grichuk didn’t crack any top-100 lists heading into the year, but KATOH still thought he was an interesting prospect based on his minor league numbers. Although his overall .259/.311/.493 batting line was nothing special, especially for the Pacific Coast League, KATOH was still impressed by the power he demonstrated as a 22-year-old in Triple-A. My system projected him for 4.4 WAR through age 28, making him the 81st highest-ranked prospect. It’s no secret the Cardinals have a good team this year, and Grichuk has been a big part of that success. The one obstacle for the 23-year-old is an elbow injury, which has limited him to pinch-hitting duties of late. If healthy, though, Grichuk’s pop should continue to power the Cardinals lineup this October, even if his batting average comes back to earth a bit.

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As Melvin Upton steps to the plate and readies for the pitch, Buster Posey appraises him. First, he looks at his feet as they dig in. Gradually, his eyes move up Upton’s body, brazenly staring as he takes in information. Down pops the sign as the catcher moves his attention to the pitcher.

It’s not just idle ogling. He’s looking for clues. Which ones?

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Thursday night, the Cardinals got thumped by the Reds, 11-0. Bad game. One of those games you just toss out and move on from. You might wonder what this has to do with clutch.

Conveniently, Thursday night, the Cardinals found themselves in basically zero clutch situations. For something a little more representative, consider Wednesday’s game, against the Cubs. Nine outs into the game, the Cardinals trailed 3-1. From there, they yielded no more runs; from there, they scored three more, all in the bottom of the eighth. In that way, the Cardinals won a game in which they were out-hit 11-5. They won a game in which they were out-OPSed .650-.526.

The Cardinals haven’t made a habit of that, exactly, but it gets at the idea. As I write this, the Cardinals have the best record in baseball, by a handful of games. Odds are pretty good they’ll reach or clear 100 wins. It makes sense that they also have the best run differential in the National League. Yet, interestingly, we can also consider OPS differential. By that measure, the Cardinals rank fifth in baseball, between the Pirates and the Yankees. That’s still good, obviously, but there’s something going on in between those numbers and the actual team record. Something that’s made the Cardinals look even stronger.

That something is clutch performance. The Cardinals have been clutch, far more clutch than any other team. It’s admittedly a difficult thing to quantify. And, admittedly, there are multiple definitions of “clutch.” The definition being used here is putting on a particularly good performance in pressure situations. You could think of the Cardinals as having had wonderful timing. It’s lifted their record above what you’d expect.

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Over the last few years, Matt Carpenter developed into one of the game’s most underrated stars by exceeding at the skill set embodied by the likes of Mark Grace and Joe Mauer over the last few decades; be extremely selective at the plate, rarely strike out, hit a ton of line drives, and create value through elite levels of walks and doubles.

From his rookie season of 2012 through the end of last season, no one in baseball took a higher percentage of pitches than Carpenter, and he ranked 14th overall in contact rate when he did offer at a pitch in the strike zone. Carpenter’s unwillingness to chase pitches out of the zone, and his ability to rarely whiff on swings in the zone, allowed him to post nearly even walk and strikeout rates in an era when pitcher dominance has become the norm. While he wasn’t a big power guy — he hit just 25 home runs during those three seasons — he made up for it by posting one of the highest line drive rates in the game, which allowed him to rank in the top 10 in doubles, so he wasn’t just a slap-hitting singles machine like some other elite contact batters.

This year, though, Matt Carpenter is different.

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Around little-league parks, and even on the back fields of certain schools and organizations, you might hear a common refrain from the batting cages. “Chop wood, chop wood,” is how Bryce Harper mimics the coaches he’s heard before. The idea is that a quick, direct path to the baseball — like an ax chop — is the best way to get quickly to the ball and create the backspin that fuels the power.

Turns out, pretty much all of that is wrong.

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